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Phil Donahue, the longtime host of the trend-setting TV talk show The Phil Donahue Show, died Sunday evening following a long illness, surrounded by family including his longtime wife, actor Marlo Thomas.. He was 88.
His death was announced on The Today Show this morning. Today shared a statement from Donahue’s family. See the announcement below.
Calling Donahue “a daytime staple” who pioneered a format that had been replicated by others, Today hosts noted that Donahue had been presented a Medal of Honor by President Joe Biden just this summer.
Donahue was married to Thomas for more than 40 years, having met when the That Girl star met Donahue when she was a guest on his talk show.
The family statement reads, “Groundbreaking TV talk show journalist Phil Donahue died Sunday night at home surrounded by his wife of 44 years Marlo Thomas, his sister, his children, grandchildren and his beloved Golden Retriever Charlie. Donahue was 88 years old and passed away peacefully following a long illness.”
Donahue was born December 21, 1935, in Cleveland, Ohio, and in the late 1950s embarked on a career as a radio journalist at first in his hometown and then Adrian, Michigan.
But it was his TV work in Dayton, Ohio, that truly launched not only Donahue’s career but what would become a novel and highly influential style of daytime talk TV. In 1959, he was hired as a TV reporter at Dayton’s WHIO, where his empathetic style of interview was first noticed by the public and his bosses. Within four years, he also had a radio call-in show called Conversation Piece for WHIO’s affiliated radio station.
Within several more years, he had taken his talk endeavor to TV, hosting a business show and co-anchoring the evening news. In 1967, he was scooped up by a competing Dayton station, WLWD, who offered him a daytime morning interview show with a studio audience.
With a studio audience that was treated by Donahue with respect – the host would make his way through the seats and hand over the mic to audience members with questions for guests – The Phil Donahue Show became a Dayton-area staple and favorite. Donahue is regarded as an early advocate for women, giving his largely female audience the opportunity to speak and ask questions on serious topics rather than the home ec subjects that so many daytime talkers focused on.
Unlike Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and numerous other daytime talkers, The Phil Donahue Show typically featured one guest per episode, the better to delve into serious issues with considerable depth. Among his earliest, most frequent and most controversial guests was atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who provoked the midwestern audiences with her anti-religion opinions.
By 1969, the show branched out from Dayton to syndicate in other Midwestern markets, and by ’71 was airing in more than 30 cities.
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